gunfire and cops near cane bay ?

Yes feds
Yes crackdowns
Stiff penalties
Active visable police and citizen group presence
More outrage

Yes feds
Yes crackdowns
Stiff penalties
Active visable police and citizen group presence
More outrage

(tu)(tu)(tu)

I am all for having a gun for home protection, where your options are limited and few others are around. But initiating a shootout in a restaurant is a totally different matter. Even though you might be an expert marksman at a shooting range shooting at paper targets, how about the thugs you are shooting at in the restaurant? Are they skilled? Do they care about hitting an innocent bystander? What do you think the chances are of you being able to shoot and disable 3 or 4 armed robbers before at least one of them is able to fire a few shots in your general direction? The chances of them hitting you is probably pretty slim, but how about the the people sitting at the next table? I have been at a north shore restaurant during an armed robbery when at least a couple of patrons had handguns on them. Fortunately they recognized the risk of starting a gunfight with 50 or so others standing around in close proximity and did nothing, for which I am thankful. If you have a chance to shoot them in the street as they are running away, and you are the only one at risk if they shoot back, then great, do it and I will be the first to buy you a drink. But it might not be so rewarding if an innocent patron is killed or paralyzed by a stray bullet because you decided to initiate a shootout in a crowded place.

Forget curfews and martial law; let's do something simple: Cordon off the island (a suggestion made by Eisenhower and MacArthur, for Japan), and intercept the guns and drugs at sea.

JE - you and I were sitting together during that north shore incident a few years ago. It was scary as hell, but it was over quickly. I can't imagine what it would have been like if a patron or two had drawn their guns and tried to shoot after the robbers.

heard tonight that the feds took over the case involving the murder of ecliff at club 54

not sure why but i think it might be because of his day job

hope they find and fry the coward that shot him...

where was his day job?

where was his day job?

Federal Court House

If he was a federal employee whoever shot him is in a heap o' trouble.

There is a lot of police presence on the boardwalk in STX, and at the Seaborne parking lot at night but they are all on thier cel phones.......

Don't forget about the STT police officer shot over memorial day. Two tourrist were also shot that same weekend. STT has just as much crime, just better media control--probably becuase of the cruise industry. News stories reporting violent crime don't effect tourism. The underlying violent crime effects tourisum. Stop the violence and news agency will have nothing to report.
So sad for the all families.

All of this is breaking my heart. Too many young kids getting shot. I've been here 7 months and this is crazy when is it going to give?
I love this place (STX) and its pnly geeting worse.

All of this is breaking my heart. Too many young kids getting shot. I've been here 7 months and this is crazy when is it going to give?
I love this place (STX) and its pnly geeting worse.

Just wait. Sooner or later one of the victims will be your friend or co-worker, or more likely, the son/daughter of your friend or co-worker. yes, heart breaking indeed. I'm glad the govener is taking steps to restore "peace officer" status to federal officers. The next step is asking for federal broader enfrocement and FBI/ATF to stop the flow of guns and drugs.

already lost a co worker

already lost a co worker

So sorry....

18 STX
15 STT
01 STJ
34 USVI total

Basically a one in 2,000 chance of becoming a murder victim. Service men had better odds during the Vietnam war. Slightly better odds for STJ.

Putting everyone in the same bucket is statistically ignorant. The odds of a non-drug dealer who has lots of resources being murdered is nowhere near 1in 2,000. Is the crime here too bad? Yes. Do we need to make changes/improvements? Yes. Do we need to exaggerate the problem by using bogus statistics? No.

heard word of mouth the cops got the gunman at club 54 shooting

havnt seen the paper in a couple days... any truth to what i heard ?

Putting everyone in the same bucket is statistically ignorant. The odds of a non-drug dealer who has lots of resources being murdered is nowhere near 1in 2,000. Is the crime here too bad? Yes. Do we need to make changes/improvements? Yes. Do we need to exaggerate the problem by using bogus statistics? No.

So are you saying that

1) innocents never get killed? Interesting. 'Cuz i've attended memorials for more than a few "non-drug dealers" over the years....more than I want to count.

here's (not-bogus) the math...

34 murders / 7.75 months = 4.4 murders per month.
4.4 x 12 months = 52.8 projected this year
52.8 murders / 105,000 popluation = 1.32 : 2625
truncate to 1: 2,000.

2) given the small population, limited geopgraphy, surrounded by water we are not all in "same bucket"? As far as know know floks who work on stt/stx don't retreat to distant suburban commuter communities after working hours. How do propose to divid up the "buckets"?

Segmenting the population by white v. non-white, still results in a 1: 2000 ratio. Segmenting the population by gender, females are less likely to be victims. Now that you know the formual, feel free to figure the ratios by island, age band, household income, educational attainment, occupation, gender, ethnic origin or whatever makes you feel invicible. It's small island with alot of bullets. and bullets don't read population tables.

rhstoo is correct in saying that you can't just take the population, divide the number of murders by that population and come to the conclusion that you have a 1:2000 chance of being murdered here.

Lets put it this way, if you are a non smoker do you have the same chance of getting lung cancer as a smoker?

rhstoo is simply saying that there are factors other than just "being here" that make you more or less likely to be murdered. The number 1:2000 is a gross exaggeration of the risk if you are not selling drugs, a police officer, a prostitute, or in other some high risk profession that puts you in day to day contact with murderers.

Bullets aren't just flying around at random hitting people every now and then. Someone actually consciously decides to point a gun at someone, aim, and pull a trigger to kill a specific individual. Occasionally they miss and hit someone at random but the odds of the person being hit being the target of a concious effort are much higher than the odds of randomly being caught in the cross fire. Hence the 1:2000 number is bogus, both on the high side of risk estimation for someone not in a high risk profession and on the low side for someone who is in a high risk profession.

Sean

Perhaps restaurants and similar "cash businesses" should consider accepting only credit cards after a certain time of the day.

The only real reason to accept cash is to avoid paying tax on the transaction.

No cash on the premises = no need for a robbery, unless you're stealing food and drinks.

Just my opinion.

VI canuch - LOL - that is hilarious. Imagine the taxes people would have to pay.. LOL

It would be cheaper to hire armed guard. :@)

one of last week's victims was an armed gaurd

one of last week's victims was an armed gaurd

Are you sure he was armed? Most restaurant/resort security personnel aren't armed other than with non lethal equipment.

off duty fed. most carry a weapon. just assumed he was armmed. I've seen armmed security at night spots.

He was shot in the back.

Horribly sad. My heart breaks. The violence is unacceptable. I've yet to become accustomed. Nor can I pretend it only happens to "drug dealers". So awfully sad, the greatest pox on our territory--this disregard for human life--this stupid "drug deaer" justification--like it's somehow ok and if you're poor and live in the projects then it's ok to live with monthly murders and dead bodies.... What kind of message it sending to future generations: kill or be killed... Rant over.